Tagged: inequality

The day after the election I said “I’d be extremely surprised if it doesn’t turn out to be National-NZ First.” Well, I have the pleasure (I think?) of being able to say again: I was wrong.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel yet.(I guess I’m happy? We’ll have to wait and see the content of the agreement and what the govt actually does. I hope the Greens demanded a lot and got it (this looks promising but we don’t have details or confirmation yet), and that Winston emphasised the 1/3 of him that’s like Sanders rather than the 2/3 of him that’s like Trump. There is real hope of climate action, more paid parental leave, faster minimum wage increases, reversal of the step-backwards pay equity law, adequate funding for health especially mental health, more support for students and some free education, repeal of national standards and charter schools, more affordable housing even if limited crackdown on speculation, adequately funding a full superannuation system in the future with the taxes future retirees are paying now, less poverty in families where adults are in paid work, and maybe even some benefit rises/humanisation.)

So instead of reactions or analysis I thought I’d do what I do best and make a couple of graphs.

Here’s the first one. It compares the votes received by the parties that ended up making up the government with the votes received by other parties who (a) managed to make it into Government and (b) plausibly might have banded together to form a government.1

The takeaway from this is:

The 2017 government represents a majority of votes as well as a majority of seats. Under FPP, the government hadn’t represented the majority of votes since 1951. And even under MMP, governments don’t represent a majority of party votes every time (five times out of eight so far).

The alternative bloc (National & NZ First) would have been an even bigger majority: it got 1.29% more party votes than the bloc that formed the government. But this isn’t new. In 1996, the alternative bloc (Labour & NZ First & Alliance) got 4.42% more party votes than the bloc that formed the government. Both times NZ First chose what they thought was the best government bloc, not the biggest government bloc.

As I argued in my last blog, MMP creates monarch-maker situations more often than FPP because it more accurately reflects how people vote. As Winston pointed out in his reveal speech, neither National nor the Labour-Green MOU succeeded in winning a majority and king/queenmaking themselves. This left NZF able to make up a majority with either side. A lot of people don’t like kingmakers—especially when they’re people we don’t like, and especially when they don’t choose how we’d like. And I get it. But First Past the Post was worse. It artificially advantaged major parties and leads to disproportionate situations like 1978, 1981, 1984, and 1993 where the opposition bloc won more votes (often substantially more votes) than the government bloc but didn’t get the all-important majority of seats.

Here’s the second graph:

The takeaway from this one is pretty obvious.

Footnotes

This means I’ve excluded other parties who might have liked to be part of a government bloc but they didn’t make it into Parliament (TOP, Conservatives, Christian Coalition, Legalise Cannabis, Values, sometimes Social Credit, sometimes NZ First, etc.). I’ve also excluded parties where it’s not plausible that they might have worked together: e.g. ACT with National and NZ First this time (they wouldn’t have been needed or wanted). I dunno if it’s plausible that Social Credit might have gone with Labour in 1978 and 1981 and National in 1984 because I don’t really know anything about Social Credit, but I’ve erred on the side of “who knows—maybe”. If we removed Social Credit from the numbers, the opposition blocs would be reduced. But still, in ’78 and ’81, Labour won the popular vote but National won a majority of seats.↑

The main thing I’m devastated about is the Māori party being driven out of government, and I mainly blame Labour for that. Two kaupapa Māori parties have been driven out of Parliament in the last two elections. Of course, this is partly because of their decisions to sit at tables with rich white men. But it’s also partly because they’ve been taken out by their political opponents. I know that’s politics (and Te Ururoa himself helped defeat Hone last election), but it’s sad. The Māori party were an effective voice for Māori and for justice, and they held the major parties to account on Te Tiriti, which needs to happen. They were the best part of the National-led government and they would have been a good part of a Labour-led government.

Once again I’m angry at the undemocraticness of the 5% threshold for representation. The thousands of party votes TOP and Māori received mean those parties deserve a few seats between them: those party votes should be worth as much as party votes for the big parties. But the threshold (and their failure to qualify for the local-seat exemption) blocks those parties from getting those seats, because of the Electoral Commission’s undemocratic fear of a “proliferation of small parties” with extremist views. And yet ACT survives again because they & National use the local vote to their advantage.

The incoming government: hopes and fears

We don’t know yet what the government will look like, except that it will be some combination of just the four big parties (National has already cast David Seymour aside). While a Labour-NZ First-Green govt is technically possible, it would be a bit of a poisoned chalice for Labour and the Greens: firstly because a lot of people would (rightly or wrongly) consider this government illegitimate, and secondly because they’d have to work with Winston Peters. A National-Green government is also technically possible, but National would have to give some pretty enormous concessions for the Greens to decide the situation has changed and they’re now willing to risk electoral suicide by working with National.

On the whole, I’d be extremely surprised if it doesn’t turn out to be National-NZ First.1 We’ll have to wait and see what a National-NZ First government will look like. We’ll get some clues with coalition negotiations, and find out the rest over the next three long years.

They’re both terrible parties, so their government could be doubly terrible. But my hope is that since they’re terrible in different ways, they could somewhat cancel out each other’s terribleness. E.g. National are too committed to globalisation (for the sake of capitalism) to go too far in appeasing Winnie’s anti-immigrant sentiments. And NZ First are far more economically left-leaning than National,2 so they could hopefully stop National from going too far on neoliberalism. A bunch of things that were passed over the last nine years by National, ACT and Peter Dunne were opposed by NZ First. There is precedent for NZ First holding National to account on its extreme capitalism, such as in the 90s when the minimum wage was not increased during the whole term of the Bolger government until NZ First forced them to increase it in 1997. So I think there is some hope that this government will be not as bad as the government over the last three terms has been.

Secondly, there’s some hope that private members’ bills from the left will be taken over the line by NZ First. For example, it’s possible that a zero carbon by 2050 law could be passed this term.

Thirdly, there’s hope in the way the Overton window has shifted slightly leftward during this election campaign. Earlier on, it looked like it was shifting in a worrying immigrant-scapegoating direction, but the Greens repented of their immigration stance, Labour toned theirs down, National didn’t join in,3 and NZ First somewhat fizzled. The political conversation became more about issues that matter: poverty, homelessness, housing unaffordability, and river water quality (sadly, climate change not enough).

And I think there is some hope that this government will do at least something on these issues. Under Key, National’s line on these issues was basically “there’s no issue”, but under English it’s more like “there is an issue and we’ve got it under control”—not a dramatic difference but an important one. And there are some signs National are starting to actually act on some of these issues. For example, they’ve done some encouraging Housing First experiments in Hamilton and Auckland and it would be great if they made this nationwide.4 And in Paddy Gower’s debate, English famously committed to lifting 100,000 kids out of poverty (even if they have been conveniently vague on what poverty measure he’s using). If this happens, great. If not, it’s something to hold them to account for.5

My biggest fear is that NZ First will push National to revive its policy to abolish the Māori seats. It’s still their policy to do to this eventually, but it’s on hold because “now is not the right time” (translation: we have a government arrangement with the Māori party). Bill English has already said this won’t happen, and I don’t want to believe that he’d do it. He’s seemed quite different to Don Brash on te Tiriti and te ao Māori (and on basic human decency), but Bill English has disappointed me quite a bit over the last few months.

Last but not least, I also have hope that there will be a strong Labour-Green government in three years time. Hopefully Labour has got its act together more by then and is more Corbynite than it is now.

Footnotes

Though Winnie will milk his technical queenmaker powers to gain maximum concessions out of National. ↑

Not out of concern for immigrants so much as concern for immigrants’ low-wage employers, in my opinion. ↑

Housing First is quite a radical reversal of the currently dominant mindset of having a bunch of conditions and sanctions in exchange for any welfare support. It gives an unconditional roof over the head first. Any state involvement in trying to change people’s lives comes after this, and isn’t a condition for having a roof over the head. And it works – it basically eliminates rough sleeping. ↑

However, a third option is probably more likely: they’ll find a measure that allows them to say that they’ve met their target, even though the opposition and pretty much everyone else will say it hasn’t happened. They’ll continue to insist they’re right next election, as they did with the 11 billion dollar hole this time. ↑

People of the following occupations are all extremely likely to own real property beyond the family home and Māori land interests:

Labour MP: 50%

National MP: 76.27%

Green MP: 50%

NZ First MP: 58.3% or 61.54%*

United Future MP: 100%

These rates are all extremely high – far higher than any ethnic or national group, for example. It is clear what we must do to curb property speculation and solve the housing crisis: Ban MPs from buying property in NZ.

Election results before special votes (specials might change one or two seats but nothing substantial)

One initial thought: While certain people get up in arms about using the MMP threshold system to gain representation, the real problem is how big parties can use it to deny representation… whether Internet Mana or Conservative. So RIP Internet Mana and even the Conservatives, who earned their right to air their lunatic views in Parliament with 19 times United Future’s votes.

Also, John Campbell is quite wrong to say the deaths of these two shows that “money cannot buy politics in New Zealand.” Who does he think pays National’s extremely successful PR people? What does he think is the force that keeps mainstream media so uncritical, anaesthetising, anti-intellectual, anti-policy and pro-National (despite his best efforts to work against that)? In fact, what it shows is that money is no substitute for good strategy, being in tune with dominant opinion in your society, and/or (in our unjust electoral system) support from a major party.

Anyway, onto how I was wrong…

Of all the blogs I’ve written, I think the most off the mark was this one where I said I was “(tentatively) happy about Internet Mana.” Second would be this one where I underestimated how bad Dotcom’s failure at the Moment of Truth was. I may have been wrong when I backed Cunliffe for Labour leader too, but I don’t know if it would have made much difference if Shearer or Robertson or Jones was in charge (probably the main difference would be that if Shearer had stayed on, there would have been a cleaner break post-this-election).

I was wrong because I underestimated the backlash of dominant opinion in NZ against Kim Dotcom (not so much when he was a victim of the US-style-US-instigated illegal police raid, but certainly after he started trying to throw his own power around). This felt its effect in a few ways:

It looks like for every apathetic Gen-Y-er vote Internet Mana won for the left, they scared several boomers, conservatives and Stuff readers towards the far-right. Though this isn’t 100% clear. Labour started to drop in the polls after the Internet Mana deal. But they also dropped after the WhaleOil + Herald smear on Cunliffe that turned out to be 95% bollocks, but not before doing its damage in the polls. And, bizarrely, Labour dropped after Dirty Politics too.

NZers don’t like what they see as “dodgy deals,” though they’re hypocritical about it: they’ll forgive National’s Epsom and Ohariu cups of tea, but when they already didn’t like Harawira or Dotcom (and didn’t understand the ways the two parties are consistent; thinking it was entirely a money thing), the deal was another reason to oppose them and anyone who might end up in government with them.

Dotcom and the Internet Mana deal seems to have turned Te Tai Tokerau voters off Hone Harawira enough that they could be convinced by Labour, National, NZ First and the Māori Party to vote for Labour’s Kelvin Davis. Labour had no choice but to oppose Internet Mana, a populist boomer swing voter’s nightmare, given that they rely on the opinions of such voters for success. But they tried to have their cake and eat it too by not unequivocally ruling Internet Mana out of any kind of government agreement, which was understandable given they’d be struggling to form a government without them, but ultimately a big mistake. They were close enough that Internet Mana presumably scared baby boomers and conservatives away from Labour, but far enough away to kill off Internet Mana and waste thousands of change-the-government votes, including my own.

Dotcom failed at the “Moment of Truth” worse than I previously acknowledged. He’d been promising for months to provide evidence Key knew about the US plot against him earlier than the day before the raid. Instead, he made the MOT entirely about spying, and leaked a bizarre e-mail without anything to back it up, which didn’t prove anything – I still can’t figure out if it was fraudulent and, if so, whether Dotcom knew it was fradulent or not; but it’s certainly not convincingly real. The annoying thing is it’s quite likely he’s right about the “political pressure” on his case. But his e-mail took credibility away from that theory, rather than adding it.

Even without that failure, the cartoonish and manipulative way he went about the MOT made it too easy for people to simply ignore all the genuinely alarming revelations about spying at the MOT, and Key’s dishonest and desperate (yet apparently successful) defence. Dotcom tried to use the event for his ego and his desire for revenge, rather than for the good of the country. If he wanted to raise awareness about spying and really get through to NZers about it, he should have:
(a) not talked it up but kept it quiet, exceeded expectations and let the revelations do the talking;
(b) kept revelations from spying separate from revelations about his case, or at least made sure he had proof about the latter before revealing anything;
(c) released the info months ago rather than five days before the election in a transparent attempt to influence the vote; and
(d) stayed in the background himself got a respected figure from the left and a respected figure from the right (e.g. Graeme Edgeler) to front it.
(Possibly Nicky Hager should have followed a similar strategy with Dirty Politics: not just writing about the WhaleOil stuff, but making sure he also focused on some of the dodgier things Labour have done… even if it meant dredging up old news. I don’t say this for ethical reasons – “balance” is an illusion and he’s perfectly justified in having a specific focus on WhaleOil and associates – but for rhetorical strategy reasons. If he’d come across as more bipartisan it would have been harder to write him off as a “left wing conspiracy theorist.” He could have left it to the readers to realise National are so much worse at Dirty Politics than Labour.)

Kim Dotcom clearly has no idea about NZ culture, and the NZers he had alongside him (Laila Harré, the Mana people, Bradbury, Edgeler etc) should have known better, just as I should have.

To Dotcom’s credit, though: tonight he’s acknowledged that he poisoned the party with his toxic brand. (His concession speech is in stark contrast to Cunliffe’s denial. If Cunliffe had said he’d have to go back to his party and see who they wanted to continue leading the party, they may have let him stay on. But saying he’s going to hold onto the leadership probably guarantees he’ll be rolled… the only thing leaving him there is the fact they don’t have anyone better).

I’m not going to say I was wrong to vote Internet Mana, but I was definitely wrong not to realise the experiment would actually make Key more likely to be re-elected, not less.

(Of course, there are other reasons for tonight’s result too: Labour’s bitchy in-fighting, lack of consensus about what they stand for, and general incompetence; National still being extremely good at PR; a docile and blatantly biased mainstream media; dominant “common sense” in NZ being a lot more in line with National’s confident neo-liberalism-with-lip-service-to-welfare-state than anything any other party’s offering; etc. And of course it’s ridiculous that Kim Dotcom and Hone Harawira – whose policies are quite normal in Germany or pre-1984 NZ – are seen as dangerous extremists while ACT are seen as acceptable coalition partners and the Conservative joke party won around over 85,000 votes. But it would be denial to blame the media and dominant ideology entirely – the various mistakes of the left-of-NZ First also played a significant role).

PS: I was also wrong about the polls – turns out they were actually biased AGAINST National this time. Or maybe the media were right that the Moment of Truth aftermath and Dotcom backlash actually gave a bump to National. Or maybe soft National voters / Labour voters without hope freaked out when there was a last minute turn away from National and it looked like Winston Peters or Colin Craig might be in government? It’s impossible to know.

PPS: I was also wrong to spend so many hours writing blogs during the last parliamentary term. This will be my last blog for Cut Your Hair, at least for the foreseeable future. Thanks all readers and sharers and commenters etc; it’s been cathartic if nothing else.

Another obvious lie too many National supporters believe is that Labour are bad for employment (because they raise the minimum wage too fast), and National have “solved unemployment” (because they’ve made it harder to maintain benefits):

Now, it is true that Labour raise the minimum wage much faster, and that National cut welfare (in a recession!). But the unemployment rates have been more like the other way around,* and anyone suggesting National are better than Labour at keeping unemployment down is either believing or promoting a lie.

Actually, it’s a couple of lies… but they’re both obviously bollocks to anyone who’s spent five minutes looking into them:

LIE 1:

“Raisng the minimum wage reduces jobs”

TRUTH 1:

If, as Key claims, Treasury has done research that shows major job losses would result from gradual increases in the minimum wage, then this amazing information would be world news – because the vast weight of academic research around the world ever since the groundbreaking David Card/Alan Krueger work in the US fast food industry 20 years ago, is that it would do no such thing.

LIE 2:

“National have solved unemployment by making it harder to get the benefit”

This confusion arises from a basic failure to understand the difference between individual problems/solutions and socio-economic problems/solutions, as sociologist C. Wright Mills pointed out 55 years ago:

After an eleventh-hour resurrection of Cut Your Hair just before the 2017 NZ election, the blog has re-overtaken its old rivals Put ’em all on an island, Keeping Stock and, the ultimate nemesis, Room 5 @ Melville Intermediate School.

(However, these rankings should be taken with a large grain of salt because not every blog is included, the stats are very fakeable, and each counter gives different stats, as you’ll see below)